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Phaeded wrote:The PMB "Papess" as Faith-as-Franciscan nun; my rationale being that the new Sforzan regime found it expedient to hold up Franciscan Poverty as a virtue to be embraced at the point in time.

Consider these images of St. Francis marrying "Lady Poverty" - while not exactly a nun certainly speaks to the simplicity of the Faith nun:
[could not find details on this image that oddly looks like a card - probably just a panel painting]

[Assisi lower basillica - note virtue halo]

Hello Phaeded,
thank you for the two beautiful images!
I think the "allegorical marriage" theme is extremely relevant to the subject of this thread. The Popess has often been interpreted as "the wife of the Pope", usually as a "literal" wife. Recognizing the image as an allegory permits us to recognize the marriage as allegorical as well. The bride of the Pope is the Church (Ecclesia).

I attach a couple of sources that explicitly state this point.

Bibliotheca Maxima Pontificia, Juan Tomás de Rocaberti – 1699

The groom of the Church. Strictly speaking, the groom of the Church is our Lord Christ. Indeed others are said “grooms” because they are the vicars of the true groom. And so the Pope, who is the vicar of the true groom, is called the groom of the Church.

Impenetrabilis pontificiae dignitatis clypeus, Franciscus Leitao - 1697Any bishop is said to mystically be the groom of his people; so Peter, and his successor the Roman Pontiff of the universal Church, of which he is the universal guide and ruler, as the faith teaches, is said to be its spiritual groom. In fact, if any Bishop, who generates spiritual children in his particular people, is said to be the groom of that particular Church, why should not the Roman Pontiff, who generates spiritual children in all the universal Church, be called the groom of the universal Church?

Here is a 12th century mosaic (Prüfening) showing the Chuch as the bride. This of course also alludes to Saint Mary and to the Virgin of the Apocalypse. The inscription reads: “Virtutum gemmis pr[a]elucens virgo perennis sponsi juncta thoro sponso conregnat in [a]evo”: The eternal virgin, bright with gems of virtue, joint with the groom in [their nuptial] bed, will reign [with him] forever.

ecclesia.jpg (169.96 KiB) Viewed 6977 times

More information on “sponsa-sponsus” allegories can be found in this thread started by Michael Hurst.

Could you give the sources of your last two jpg files, Marco? Especially the dates. [Added later: I just figured out that they are the original texts for your 1697 and 1699 quotes. Sorry. If things aren't spelled out, I'm often lost. I don't even know what most of the standard internet abbreviations mean.] 1697 and 1699 are a bit late, although I believe that somewhere Ross has given quotes similar to them that are from before the tarot was invented.

Here are some more things on sponso/sponsa in the Middle Ages, indeed a popular subject:
Bernard of Clairvaux, 12th century:

"Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth.” Who says this? The bride. Who is she? The soul thirsting for God...The passion of love excels among the gifts of nature, especially when it returns to its origin which is God. And there are no names as sweet to express the affections of Word and soul as those of bridegroom and bride, seeing as these have all things in common, have nothing which either claims, nothing in which the other has no share. (Harper, ed., Introduction to The Song of Songs, p. xliv, 1907)

The Church, in Bernard’s view, is simply “the unity-or rather unanimity--of many souls” (Bernard, On the Song of Songs, “A Religious of C.S.M.V.,” trans., p. 16).

Here is an illumination from a 12th century illustration to Bede’s commentary on the Song (Christ and his Church as Sponsus and Sponsa, illuminated manuscript, ca. 1130, St. Albans, England (Kings College Cambridge, MS 19, Fol. 21V, reproduced in Camille, The medieval art of love: objects and subjects of desire 1998, p. 23):

In the 16th century, Bernard’s tradition, in both interpretation and austerity, was renewed by reformers in the Roman Catholic Church such as Teresa of Avila and her friend John of the Cross. Teresa writes:

My Lord, I ask nothing else in this life but "to kiss me with the kiss of Your Mouth," and to do this in such a manner that I should not be able to withdraw from this union, even if I wished it. (Bloom, Modern critical interpretations: the Song of Songs 1988, p. 7)

John of the Cross, in a poem introducing The Dark Night of the Soul, says similarly (also in Bloom):

O night that guided me,
O night more lovely than the dawn,
O night that joined Beloved with lover,
Lover transformed in the Beloved!

The breeze blew from the turret
As I parted his locks;
With his gentle hand
He wounded my neck
And caused all my senses to be suspended.

I remained, lost in oblivion,
My face I reclined on the Beloved.
All ceased and I abandoned myself,
Leaving my cares forgotten among the lilies.

Here is another mosaic, 11th or 12th century:

The writing held by Mary says “His left hand is under my head and his right hand doth embrace me,” a quote from Song of Songs 2.6, repeated at 8.3. The writing that Christ holds says, “Come, my chosen one, I will put my throne in you” (in Latin: Veni electa mea et ponam in te thronum meum) (Lavin & Lavin, The liturgy of love : images from the Song of Songs in the art of Cimabue, Michelangelo and Rembrandt 2001, 27-28). The sentence means, of course, that Christ is empowering Mary to rule with him in heaven.

Here is another illumination, where they take a pose similar to that in secular marriage, an example of which I show at the right (Lavin and Lavin p. 29):

I do not wish to impugn the loftiness of the above words and images. It's just that the medieval and Renaissance Church said a lot of things about sponso and sponsa, some of which would be used by others to imply many things, even the shame of shames, a non-celibate pope. And not only that; when the groom's appointee can take the groom's place in the marriage bed (1699 quote), and the appointee's appointees can do so as well (1697), the lofty language is linked to a reality of forced tithes and worse, echoing the proverbial "right of the first night". As I recall, many Churchmen were not particularly fond of the tarot and its sequence, especially the Popess card. It was a set of images used in taverns, brothels, the courts of absolute rulers, and boudoirs, places where impure thoughts about Pope (and his vicars) and Popess would thrive.

I'm not disagreeing with the Church-Popess, sponso-sponsa hypothesis, for some of the people some of the time. But perhaps some people in the 15th-16th centuries, either by experience or by reading their Dante/Boccaccio/Petrarch, would have thought the Popess-Pope relationship just too tarnished, were tired of the crude jokes, and might have wanted to contemplate something else when they played the game. For more on this in relationship to the Popess see my post at viewtopic.php?f=12&.t=970#p14202.

mikeh wrote:I'm not disagreeing with the Church-Popess, sponso-sponsa hypothesis, for some of the people some of the time.

Actually, what I am interested in is understanding the original intended meaning of the Popess. So, not generically "some of the people some of the time", but the inventor of the trumps, when he added this card to the deck. I think that the interpretation documented by Michael and Ross, who see in the Popess and in the Empress two allegories taking part in sponsus-sponsa couples with the Pope and the Emperor, is the one that makes most sense. Moreover, as you write, it was a popular subject in the Middle Ages.

But perhaps some people in the 15th-16th centuries, either by experience or by reading their Dante/Boccaccio/Petrarch, would have thought the Popess-Pope relationship just too tarnished, were tired of the crude jokes, and might have wanted to contemplate something else when they played the game

I am not sure if you are referring to these two cards receiving different interpretations, or to their absence in some ancient decks. The Popess was apparently usually interpreted as being literally the wife of the Pope (by Imperiali, for instance). As Ross pointed out, the term "Popess" itself is derogatory. Folengo's sonnets also exemplify how the subject of the card was interpreted as alluding to something degrading or fictional.

The fact that the Popess has been systematically misinterpreted makes it more difficult to recognize its original meaning. Working on the context of the nearby cards (the two couples Pope-Popess Emperor-Empress) and on similar groups in medieval allegorical art is the only way to recognize the original meaning.

This is interesting:
Harley 4425 f. 11 Papelardie
Description: Detail of a miniature of an allegorical figure of Papelardie (Pope-Holiness or Hypocrisy).
Author Guillaume de Lorris and Jean de Meun
Title Roman de la Rose
Origin Netherlands, S. (Bruges)
Date c. 1490-c. 1500
Language French
Script Gothic cursive
Artists Master of the Prayer Books of around 1500
Provenance Made for Engelbert II, count of Nassau and Vianden (d. 1504): the arms of Nassau quartered with those of Vianden (partially overpainted) surmounted by a helm with mantling of azure and or and crest of two raised wings of peacock feathers, encircled by the collar of the Order of the Golden Fleece (f. 7).

Although this pre-Reformation sling at the Papacy (but why a female?) is an unexpected negative cognate for the Papess, maybe the work this is taken from, "The Story of the Rose", sheds some light on why the latter PMB Papess has a rose underfoot? Certainly nothing underfoot could have a positive meaning (consider the King vices under the Virtrues in countless works), so perhaps the rose underfoot is simply another way of expressing this figure's chastity? From the British Library's summary of the Story, where the manuscript from which the image was taken is held (and also consider the celestial Rose image that culminates Dante's Paradiso, so the antitype of that would be the 'pleasure rose' of romantic love being trampled underfoot):

The earlier part of the poem tells of the Lover’s quest for the Rose, which symbolises his lady’s love. Guillaume relates the story as if it were a dream, speaking through the voice of the Lover. Rising one May morning the he strolls along a riverbank, enjoying the sights and sounds of a new spring. The Lover’s footsteps take him to a lush orchard enclosed by a high wall.

The walled garden belongs to a nobleman called Déduit – the Old French word for pleasure. It is here the Lover must seek his elusive Rose. In the quest, he is tutored in the art of courtship by the winged God of Love and encounters a series of allegorical characters. Each is an expression of the object of his affections. Together they provide a charming commentary on the psychology of romantic love.

Phaeded wrote:This is interesting:
Harley 4425 f. 11 Papelardie
Description: Detail of a miniature of an allegorical figure of Papelardie (Pope-Holiness or Hypocrisy).
Author Guillaume de Lorris and Jean de Meun
Title Roman de la Rose
Origin Netherlands, S. (Bruges)
Date c. 1490-c. 1500
Language French
Script Gothic cursive
Artists Master of the Prayer Books of around 1500
Provenance Made for Engelbert II, count of Nassau and Vianden (d. 1504): the arms of Nassau quartered with those of Vianden (partially overpainted) surmounted by a helm with mantling of azure and or and crest of two raised wings of peacock feathers, encircled by the collar of the Order of the Golden Fleece (f. 7).

Although this pre-Reformation sling at the Papacy (but why a female?) is an unexpected negative cognate for the Papess, maybe the work this is taken from, "The Story of the Rose", sheds some light on why the latter PMB Papess has a rose underfoot? Certainly nothing underfoot could have a positive meaning (consider the King vices under the Virtrues in countless works), so perhaps the rose underfoot is simply another way of expressing this figure's chastity? From the British Library's summary of the Story, where the manuscript from which the image was taken is held (and also consider the celestial Rose image that culminates Dante's Paradiso, so the antitype of that would be the 'pleasure rose' of romantic love being trampled underfoot):

The earlier part of the poem tells of the Lover’s quest for the Rose, which symbolises his lady’s love. Guillaume relates the story as if it were a dream, speaking through the voice of the Lover. Rising one May morning the he strolls along a riverbank, enjoying the sights and sounds of a new spring. The Lover’s footsteps take him to a lush orchard enclosed by a high wall.

The walled garden belongs to a nobleman called Déduit – the Old French word for pleasure. It is here the Lover must seek his elusive Rose. In the quest, he is tutored in the art of courtship by the winged God of Love and encounters a series of allegorical characters. Each is an expression of the object of his affections. Together they provide a charming commentary on the psychology of romantic love.

The papess with rose notably has a an "erotic" red one, versus a "pure" white one:

But the Fournier Popess doesn't have a "rose underfoot". She has a rosette on the slipper on her foot.

It's easier to see in Kaplan's b/w image than in the color one Marcos shared, from the Museum itself, a few years ago:

Maybe there's a better word than "rosette" for the design on the slipper (or shoe if you like), but that's what I called it when I wrote about it. It might be a cross of some sort, but the important thing is that it is red papal footwear, its importance heightened by the presence of the ornament.

Ross,
Thanks for the clarificaiton of my misinterpetation of the slipper/"rosette".

Any ideas in regard to the "Papelardie (Pope-Holiness or Hypocrisy)"? An early (1500) indication of why the papess would get replaced? I also found it oddd that the figure had the black veil of a Clare while the Sforza papesses do not.

Brilliant find, Phaeded! It had not occurred to me that the Romance of the Rose might be part of the background material for the PMB, but there it is--not the rose, but the rest of Papalardie's depiction. The book and the nun's habit is even in the text--but no rose:

The image standing next was well portrayed
To be a hypocrite, but she was named
Pope Holy. She it is who secretly
Contrives to take us unaware, and then
She does not hesitate at any ill.
Outwardly she appears a saint demure,
With simple, humble, pious person's face;
Buit under heaven there's no evil scheme
That she has never pondered in her heart.The figure well her character did show,
Though she was of a candid countenance.
Well shod and clothed like good convent nun
She held a psalter in her hand, and took
Much pains to make her feigned prayers to God
And call upon all male and female saints.
She was not gay or jolly, but she seemed
Attentive always to perform good works.
She wore a haircloth shirt, and she was lean,
As though with fasting weary, pale, half dead.
To her and to her like will be refused
Entrance to Paradise. The Gospel says
Such folk emaciate their cheeks for praise
Among mankind, and for vainglory lose
Their chance to enter Heaven and see God.
(Robbins Translation, 1962, p. 10)

I think the meaning of "Papalardie" would be clearer if the translation were spelled "Pope-Holy". It is an ironic expression, of course.

I checked other 14th and 15th century illuminations of the same scene, and there is the book, the nun's habit, and a lot more (communion altars, communion cups, etc.), but no rose underfoot(http://romandelarose.org/#search;NARRAT ... ON;g3b.9;0). Only one comes close: BNF 12595, 15th century, has a flowering plant on the ground in front of her feet. It would be interesting to know in what part of the century that was done.

Since the characterization of "Pope-Holy" is entirely negative, we cannot conclude that the item being crushed is negative. It would more likely be thought of as positive. At that stage in the poem there is no other association for the rose except the title and the general meaning in the culture of the time. The rose was always associated with love and beauty, sacred to Venus, Isis (in Apuleius' Metamorphoses), etc. Wikipedia says (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rose_%28symbolism%29):

Medieval Christians identified the five petals of the rose with the five wounds of Christ. Roses also later came to be associated with the Virgin Mary. The red rose was eventually adopted as a symbol of the blood of the Christian martyrs.

In any case, "Pope-Holy" is someone who would keep the Lover from his Beloved, which is obviously what it will represents in a courtly love romance. So stepping on the rose is a foreshadowing of difficulties, as he tries to attain the object of his desire with the name of the Rose.

Given the date of the ms. it remains entirely possible that the artist of Harley 4425 was inspired by the card, if not the PMB then one similarly negative toward what it deems excessive piety. Its similar image, negative meaning plus the "Papelardie" connection (to Papesse) all help make the association. If it is a rosette slipper, it doesn't matter; there are numerous rosettes in the Romance, such on the Lover's pilgrim's sack (click on the book cover at http://books.google.com/books/about/The ... B-NgrsYqcC); it is the same thing, even if it is merely a red flower-like something.

I notice that it was done in Bruges, c. 1490-1500. That's very near the time and place of a couple of Bosch paintings that I think have figures inspired by the Popess card. One is a lady apparently performing a black mass in the central panel of "Temptation of St. Anthony" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Jeroe ... -21-31.jpg). The other is the "Stone Operation" lady (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cutting_the_Stone) with a book on her head. Flanders was one of the earliest places where the Church rooted out Cathars. It has been reported (I forget where) that the Cathars or Bogomils administered the Consolomentum to people with the Gospel of John or some other book on their heads. It is possible that Bosch is satirizing this practice by which a woman would become a perfecta or lady priest in the sect.

So yes, if the lady crushing a rose, in an image meant to be critical of many in the Church (and taken as such by its detractors), was inspired by cards such as ones that might have inspired Bosch, it would have been a good reason to change the card to something else.

The context in which "Pope-Holy" appears is also of interest in the context of the tarot. Right before her in the text is the personification of Old Age, ravaged by Time. And after Pope-Holy comes Poverty, half clothed in rags. And in the next chapter the Lover meets the God of Love himself, introduced by a gorgeous blonde named Ease, after which a more sober-appearing Reason tries to talk sense into him. Then comes the psychomachia of virtues and vices (or a version thereof). Among others, we meet Pope-Holy's son False-Seeming, who in turn is father of Antichrist.

The thing about allegory is that none of these figures are allegories for vices. Allegories are when one thing stands for another. As vices these figures are what they stand for, hence not allegorical. What they stand for, their meaning, is something in a drama on another level, unspoken. Fortunately, the author does say what sort of text he is basing his allegory on, at the beginning of the poem (vv. 4-9):

Well might one cite Macrobius, who wrote
The story of the Dream of Scipio,
And was assured that dreams are ofttimes true.
But if someone would wish to say or think
'Tis fond and foolish to believe that dreams
Foretell the future, he may call me fool.

He is referring to the 5th century Neoplatonist Macrobius, who wrote a commentary on Cicero's "Dream of Scipio", one of the most copied philosophical texts of the Middle Ages. In a famous passage he expounds on the nature of allegory, and the prophetic nature of the symbolism in dreams and elsewhere. After first explaining that it is a "sacrilege" to represent the Supreme God in images, he says (II.17f, p. 86f of Stahl translation):

But in treating of the other gods and the Soul, as I have said, philosophers make use of fabulous narratives; not without a purpose, however, nor merely to entertain, but because they realize that a frank, open exposition of herself is distasteful to Nature, who just as she has withheld an understanding of herself form the uncouth senses of men by enveloping herself in variegated garments, has also desired to have her secrets handled by more prudent individuals through fabulous narratives. Accordingly, her sacred rites are veiled in mysterious representations so that she may not have to show herself even to initiates. Only eminent men of superior intelligence gain a revelation of her truths; the others must satisfy their desire for worship with a ritual drama which prevents her secrets from becoming common.

He then goes on to explain how it is not only Nature who hides herself behind images, but the divinities, too. And wise men, such as Timaeus and even his master "Pythagoras himself", have respected their wishes.

In expounding on Scipio's dream Macrobius then describes the descent and ascent of the soul from and to the One, in the manner of Pythagoras. Likewise Guillaume de Lorris (the author) tells of how he, too, fell asleep and dreamed a prophetic dream. Let me quote from the essay "Allegory in the Roman de la Rose" by Kevin Brownlee (The Cambridge Companion to Allegory, 2010, p. 119):

Guillaume's extaordinarily innovative Prologue (vv. 144) deploys the language, structure and truth claims of Macrobian dream discourse in which dreams can be interpreted as having oracular or prophetic vale) to authorize a new combination of courtly erotic lyric subject matter with the narrative procedures of courtly romance narrative. The authorial voice - in a standard romance opening gambit - first evokes his named Latin auctor (v. 7) to "guarantee" (v.6) the power of dreams to "signify" (senefiance, v. 16) future truth in wakng life, to figure couvertement things that later reveal themselves apartement.

Or as Paul put it:

Now we see through a glass darkly; but then face to face.

In that sense, the romance is not just a romance, and the rose of the title does not just name a human-imaged dream-beloved and foreshadow a real human beloved, but is a symbol for the divine Beloved.

And just as there is a psychomachia of helper-virtues and hinderer-vices in the Romance of the Rose, so too are there in the tarot. Macrobius and similar Platonic- and Pythagorean-inspired texts. They were as well known to Italian humanists as French romances were to their employers, a number-laden template upon which many an allegorical drama was constructed. To be continued.

Added next day: Kevin Brownlee's essay quoted above is in The Cambridge Companion to Allegory, 2010, pp. 119ff. He is the author of numerous scholarly articles and books on the Romance of the Rose.

In relation to Macrobius, my guess would be that the rosebuds the narrator sees in the garden are collectively the Macrobian world-soul, which in the Saturnalia Macrobius identified with Isis, to which, according to Apuleius in Book XI of the Metamorphoses--another highly popular book in the Middle Ages, and a prime example of Platonic allegory--were sacred to Isis. In the Middle Ages, the Grail served the same function. In the Cary-Yale tarot, if the knight on the World/Fame card is on one level the Grail Knight, and the red castle the Grail Castle, then the card even this early points to the same goal. The Tarot de Marseille does so as well, with the lady in the lunette.

For more on how Macrobius and Platonic/Pythagorean philosophy relate to the early tarot, see Ron Decker, The Esoteric Tarot and my posts at viewtopic.php?f=12&t=971&start=10#p14194 wth the two following.

Mikeh wrote ...
"The thing about allegory is that none of these figures are allegories for vices. Allegories are when one thing stands for another. As vices these figures are what they stand for, hence not allegorical."

If a vice is presented by a figure it's to me an allegory ... cause the figure stands for the vice.

allegory: a representation of an abstract or spiritual meaning through concrete or material forms; figurative treatment of one subject under the guise of another.

If a figure with "another name", which stands or interprets something different of the soul or the human activities, it's naturally also an allegory. Both figure and "name" serve the interest, to express something. Maybe some mental or spiritual ideas are more complex than the vices, so they need more descriptive elements.

Or did you want to say, that the author handled it in this way? Perhaps he placed his action in a vice-free world or in a place, where vices are not part of the poetical game? Perhaps in heaven ... not a good place for vices naturally.

Mikeh wrote ...
"The thing about allegory is that none of these figures are allegories for vices. Allegories are when one thing stands for another. As vices these figures are what they stand for, hence not allegorical."

If a vice is presented by a figure it's to me an allegory ... cause the figure stands for the vice.

allegory: a representation of an abstract or spiritual meaning through concrete or material forms; figurative treatment of one subject under the guise of another.

If a figure with "another name", which stands or interprets something different of the soul or the human activities, it's naturally also an allegory. Both figure and "name" serve the interest, to express something. Maybe some mental or spiritual ideas are more complex than the vices, so they need more descriptive elements.

Or did you want to say, that the author handled it in this way? Perhaps he placed his action in a vice-free world or in a place, where vices are not part of the poetical game? Perhaps in heaven ... not a good place for vices naturally.

Or a garden closed by a wall, in which per definition vices aren't allowed.

Sorry, this needed more explanation. I was hoping to keep the length of the post down. I was using "allegory" in the medieval-Renaissance sense. It got changed in the late 17th-18th century by neoclassicists who thought allegory should be simple. Words get redefined so that you can't even conceptualize what the earlier writers were trying to do.

The dictionary definition you gave is general enough so as to include both practices. But before the 18th century, the meaning was more specific.

To complicate things, there were two senses of "allegory" that were current (Denys Turner, "Allegory in Christian late antiquity," p. 79 of Cambridge Companion to Allegory):

Here it is important to remember that the word allegoria transferred from Greek into Latin, carried two rather different meanings. When used in late antique Greek sources, it bore a theurgic value, relating to the concealment of divine or cosmic meanings, close to its value as "symbol". But in Latin, it had acquired a restricted literary or rhetorical sense of inferring another meaning than what is said. The word in Christian theological contexts carried the force of the Greek theurgic meaning, but was still susceptible to interference from its Latin rhetorical meaning (see in this volume Most, "Hellenistic Allegory" and Struck, "Allegory and Ascent in Neoplatonism").

This is in theological contexts. For literary contexts, and the change that occurred in the late 17th century,the best discussion is Michael Murrin's essay "Renaissance Allegory from Petrarch to Spencer" in Cambridge Companion to Allegory. He gives numerous examples of how Petrarch, Boccaccio, etc. analyzed literature allegorically, then getting to Spencer in the Faerie Queen. I suppose I need to quote the entire last page of the essay. Even then it might not be clear without the earlier examples. For that reason, I will do another post summarizing them immediately after this one, since the point seems to me absolutely crucial in discussing the early tarot. (And there is always the possibility that I have misunderstood, or that the writers in my book are wrong; unfortunately this material doesn't seem to be online, except at institutions that pay for it.) Murrin says (p. 176):

In all cases where they were used, personifications functioned in a manner opposite to allegory. A figure like Excess, who sits at the inner gate or porch of Acrasia's garden, requires no interpretation.

Clad in fayre weedes, but fowle disordered,
And garments loose that seemd unmeet for womanhed.
(The Faerie Queene 2.12.55)

Allegory, on the contrary, requires an interpretation, and all the other terms that have been used in its long tradition, terms like aenigma, hyponoia (undermeaning), symbolon, have the same implication. Spenser could use personifications because the authors of this period saw allegory in stories, whether episodes within a longer work like the Orlando Innamorato, or an entire long poem like The Faerie Queene. With this view Spenser could include personifications, if he wished, but it was the story, not the personifications, that made the allegory.

Later in the long eighteenth century all this would be reversed. Nicolas Boileau-Despreaux (1636-1711), the defender of the ancients against the moderns, provides an early example in his L'Art poetique (1674). In a passage where he is defending the use of the old gods in heroic narrative, he presents them as if they were simple personifications.

Each virtue a divinity is seen:
Prudence is Pallas, Beauty Paphos' queen. (39)

Now a major cult goddess like Minerva or Athena had many functions. She was a war goddess, a city goddess, and many other things besides phronesis or prudence. The poet could either limit her role or present her in all of them, as does "Homer" in the Iliad and the Odyssey. (40). She was not a personification. Eighteenth-century writers, however, following Boileau's line of thought, would stress clarity in allegory, as they did in everything else. They therefore favored personification fiction and, being neoclassicists, invented a genre for it which they called allegory (41), again in sharp contrast to their predecessors, who, though they tended to associate allegory with pastoral and heroic narrative, made it part of their general definition of poetry. By such thinking the use of personifications proved that Spencer wrote allegory, and their absence in the Gerusalemme liberata indicated that Tasso did not, despite his "Allegoria di poema." And the world turned upside down.

Footnotes. 39. The editors of The Continental Model (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1970), Scott Elledge and Donald Shier, include the English trans. by Sir William Soame and John Dryden (1683) along with the French text.
40. Michael Murrin, "Athena and Telemachus," International Journal of the Classical Traidtion 13 (2007), 499-515.
41. Angus Fletcher, Allegory (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1964) throughout but, perhaps especially chapter 4, pp. 181-219; and Gordon Teskey, Allegory and Violence (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1996), chapter 5, pp. 98-121 for extensive discussions of neoclassical allegory in theory and practice.

"Acrasia" in Spencer is the Greek word for, roughly, "Incontinence". In the last sentence of the essay (excluding the footnotes), Murrin is using the word "proved" ironically. Tasso of course was writing allegorically, despite his lack of personifications.

As to whether vices are in heaven, no, I suppose not. They might be in the sky, "cielo" in Italian, the heavens. In Guillaume's poem, the garden is not heaven. The comparison is to the Garden of Eden, which had its Tree of Good and Evil with attendant serpent. In Guillaume's poem, in the garden the God of Love has five ugly darts and five pretty ones. Of the ugly (4.131ff, Robbins trans. p. 20:

Blacker than fiends in Hell, alas, were they.
Pride was the first; the second, of like force,
Was Villainy, envenomed and made black
With felony; the third was christened Shame;
Despair and Faithlessness were fourth and fifth.

In Renaissance art, an example of a garden that comes to mind is Mantegna's "Pallas expelling the vices from the garden of virtue". What makes the painting allegorical in the Renaissance sense is Pallas, the garden, the ambiguous nature of the so-called "vices" (is she expelling the sources of joy, and even of virtue, as well as of vice?) and the sign "mother of the virtues". And also, since the vices aren't actually named in the painting--that would tend to limit the ambiguity--in that sense the scurrying human-looking figures do require interpreting and thus stand for something else, ethical and psychological qualities. (In bringing this up, I don't want to start another discussion of the painting, if possible.) Likewise, to the extent that the characters in a written story escape the definitions of their names, they, too, would be allegorical, in that interpretation would be involved. In the tarot, interpretation is required even for such an apparently clear-cut figure as Justice, if you are trying to make her part of a narrative going from 0 or 1 to 21. Also, if there are things in the picture that suggest ambiguity, such as, in the Tarot de Marseille, an arm that might be resting on one of the side of the scales, they might then invite interpretation and so possibly make the figure allegorical. So the line between what is allegorical and what is not may not be clear-cut in particular cases.